Winless college football team makes history, finishes 0-12 to close out one of worst seasons in recent memory

A college football program accustomed to losing hit a new low on Tuesday.

Massachusetts completed its worst season in program history with a 45-14 loss to Bowling Green to finish 0-12 on the year. The Minutemen became the 23rd FBS program since the turn of the century (excluding the shortened 2020 COVID season) to finish the year winless. 

Tuesday's loss sealed the sixth winless season in program history -- but the previous five featured schedules with eight games or fewer. According to CBS Sports research, UMass went 0-4 in 2020, 0-7-1 in 1927, 0-4-1 in 1896, 0-2 in 1882 and 0-1-1 in 1880. The Minutemen posted five 1-11 seasons since beginning FBS play in 2012, but had never gone 0-12 before 2025. 

With UMass finishing this season without a win, it marked the second consecutive year that a MAC program finished 0-12. Kent State endured the same misery just last season. Excluding 2020, the last time different teams from an FBS conference went winless in consecutive seasons happened in the late 1990s and also involved the MAC. Northern Illinois finished 0-11 in 1997, Kent State went 0-11 in 1998 and Ball State and Buffalo both went 0-11 in 1999.

UMass, in its first season under coach Joe Harasymiak, began the season with a 42-10 loss to Temple before losing its next game in heartbreaking fashion. UMass led by as many as 17 points against Bryant, an FCS program, before squandering a late lead. Bryant kicked a 25-yard field goal with no time remaining to seal a shocking 27-26 comeback win.

Winless FBS seasons since 2010

That game was the closest loss UMass had all season. In total, 10 of UMass' 12 losses were by double-digits. Eight of those losses were by at least 20 points and the team's average margin of defeat was 27.2 points. 

UMass also had a chance to secure its first win against Buffalo. After intercepting a pass while leading 21-20 with just over a minute remaining in regulation, UMass was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct, which moved the ball back to its own 10-yard line. Buffalo forced a punt and scored a go-ahead touchdown with 19 seconds remaining to seal a 28-21 win.

This season was full of change for UMass. This marked the program's second stint as a member of the MAC after spending the previous nine seasons operating as an FBS independent. The Minutemen fired former coach Don Brown after he went 6-28 and replaced him with Harasymiak, who spent the previous three seasons as the defensive coordinator at Rutgers and had a 20-15 record in three seasons as the head coach at Maine from 2016-18.

Heading into the offseason, UMass will have to retool its roster to avoid another disastrous season. Since leaving the MAC the first time back in 2016, the Minutemen have won at least four games only twice. The last season with four wins was in 2018, which marked the final year of Mark Whipple's tenure at the school.

UMass has the No. 103-ranked 2026 recruiting class in the 247Sports rankings heading into the week before the calendar flips to December. The Minutemen currently have 16 commitments in that class after finishing the 2025 recruiting cycle ranked No. 118 in the team recruiting rankings.